


Three Visits to Home Farm

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3526577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over three different years, three very different encounters take place at Home Farm between Aaron and Robert as they navigate guilt, secret exposed and what happens when everything is out in the open. Three part fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Visit One - 2015 - Night

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetad. Part one set in canon universe sometime in early March after Katie's death.

**Visit One - 2015 - Night**

_**Robert** _

 

It’s one of those nights where the prospect of sleep hovers over him like a fine mist, unobtainable. He stays in bed for a while, eyelids peeled back and his brain projecting images he’d rather not see onto the blank canvas of the ceiling. Chrissie is oblivious to all this and has been since it all started – the nightmares, the insomnia. In some ways he’s glad not to sleep – he can’t face the idea he might call out Katie’s name in the night, or worse confess to the darkness that’s consuming him. Then there’s always the danger that he’d mention Aaron’s name and have no way of explaining himself.

Robert drags himself out of bed, careful not to disturb Chrissie beside him. They’d always made jokes about it in the past – what a heavy sleeper she was – but it’s times like these he’s grateful for it. There’s a dressing gown on the back of the door and underwear on the floor and he slips them on before heading downstairs to the office. If he can’t sleep, he’ll work.

He pours himself a drink first, letting it give heat to his mouth, burn all the way down his throat. Then he goes for another and heads to the office, taking the bottle with him. He doesn’t bother with the lights and sits at the desk, nursing the whiskey with the blue glow of his laptop casting over the room. Once it’s loaded up he occupies himself with the menial task of dealing with his inbox – checking each email methodically.

When his second glass is drained and his eyes are starting to blur in the reduced light, Robert flicks between tabs on his laptop. He opens Facebook and stares numbly at the meaningless things that crop up on his feed, people he’d long since forgotten about, so-called friends he barely remembers from school. He deliberates only for a moment and then types Vic’s name into the search bar at the top and clicks on his sister’s profile. A goofy photo of her and Adam stares back at him and he can’t help but smile – if only for a second. He knows where to look next – of course he does, he’s done it before – and he clicks through her photo albums until he finds it. A photo of Aaron. It’s from Christmas – an album of Andy’s Stag Do photos – and Robert tries to block out the spiral of events that lead from that night to here and focus on the photo. The stupid East 17 costume that on him looks more attractive than it ever should. How strange it looks to see Aaron smile, how rare. Robert isn’t about to deny he’s partly to blame for Aaron’s lack of happiness and has no right to be jealous when he’s not the cause of it but it doesn’t stop him from feeling it.

At first he thinks he imagines it, a light tapping on the outside door of the office. He ignores it, feeling spooked that he’s started hearing things, but then it happens again and his phone, on silent next to him, lights up with a message.

_A: U awake? It’s me. Outside._

It’s been weeks since Aaron’s texted and Robert panics that he’s hallucinating, but he picks himself up off the chair and goes to the door, hands prickly with sweat. He unlocks the door and finds Aaron behind it, wet and a blue tinged face from the cold, rainy night.

“What are you doing here?” All Robert’s need and vulnerability is suddenly bricked up by the sheer panic that someone might have seen him.

“Can I come in?”

Robert doesn’t budge and feels the chill of the air line his skin with goosebumps. “It’s three in the morning.”

“I can’t sleep,” Aaron says, all resentment and anger drained out of him. It’s not how Robert remembers things between them, Aaron was never short of fire and attitude – that’s what he liked about him in the first place. His eyes aren’t dark with hatred, they’re glossed over, exhausted. “And you can’t either.”

Robert relents, stepping aside. He can almost feel the night’s coldness coming from Aaron’s body as he moves past even though they don’t touch. He watches Aaron shiver, standing hunched by the desk. Now that he’s stood there, it’s all Robert wants just to let him stay. He stops feeling so alone.

They don’t speak and Robert pours him a drink, which he refuses at first before eventually giving in. Robert watches him wince and empty the glass in just one laboured mouthful. He rests his fists on the desk, head drooped.

“How many nights have you been like this?” Aaron asks without looking up.

“Too many to count.” Robert pauses, realising they’re both on the same page. “You?”

“Some nights it’s okay. It’s not like I’ve never had to block things out before.”

Robert’s sure Aaron can hear him swallow and he can feel a tightness pull at his chest.

“No,” he says eventually, not knowing what else to say. His knowledge of Aaron’s past is blurry at best, fragmented, but he knows enough – knows he never should have dragged Aaron down to his level. He wants to ask if Aaron’s said anything, given anyone hints at all, but he know he can’t, because if he so much as treads on that subject again Aaron will be out the door without hesitation.

Aaron reaches to pour himself another drink and Robert steps to his side, placing a hand on his arm.

“Maybe you better not.”

“Why?” Aaron says, head snapping up. His eyes meet Robert’s for the first time, filmed with tears and raw at the edges. “Afraid I might let something slip?”

Robert grabs at Aaron’s wet jacket, pulling him around, away from the bottle. “It won’t make you feel better. Drinking.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it does.”

“Trust me.”

Aaron tries to shove him away, but he’s weakened by the energy he’s using to prevent himself from crying. “Like you care how I feel.”

“I care.”   

Aaron’s temper is flattened, he’s lost all bite and Robert hates every second of it – this worn down, kicked-in version of a guy who had so much spirit about him. He’s seen Aaron cry before, but hot, thick tears – not like these ones, ones of hopelessness.

“About yourself,” he says, barely audible as tears skim his cheeks out of tired eyes.

Robert lunges forward, pressing his mouth to Aaron’s and catching his wet top lip between his. Aaron’s body, sodden from the rain outside darkens Robert’s dressing gown with damp as the kiss lengthens, Aaron’s forehead pushing into his as if to worm away but not willing to commit to that kind of resistance. Because above it all, above the guilt and Katie and Chrissie and every other single life they’re ruining – including their own – they’re weak for each other.

Aaron’s neck twists away as if some small part of him has woken up and he’s trying to fight it and Robert feels this and lets the separation happen naturally, but keeping his eyes closed. He doesn’t want Aaron to look into his eyes and see a man he’s started to despise, distrust. He doesn’t want Aaron to see the man that Robert sees in the mirror. He lays his hand on Aaron’s chest, letting whatever needy grip he had on him disappear – so he gives Aaron the option then, he’s not trapping him here. His other hand runs up Aaron’s neck, the back of his hand and knuckles gliding briefly across his cheek before stopping and just holding Aaron’s face, letting his thumb be a dam for his tears.

If the first kiss was exhaustion and grief, the second kiss – which Aaron reaches for – is made of need and desperation. Robert knows, as life and colour thrashes back into his body, that this is exactly the wrong thing for them do be doing – not for the risk but for their own state of mind.  

Aaron is open mouthed against him, submitting to moan after stunted moan coming from Robert’s lips, while he makes clumsy handed attempts to undress Robert. The robe falls loosely off his shoulders as Robert works Aaron’s jeans. They stick to his thighs when he pulls them down and the white shiver running through Aaron can’t be good for his health either but this action is all about the moment, not about the consequence. Robert pushes his mouth against Aaron’s again and again, kissing the life out of him because he needs this – he needs the one person who knows just half of the things he’s capable of and still wants him.

They lean on each other, heads bowed and a hand on the shoulder to keep steady while reaching out and gripping each other’s dicks. Robert’s neediness escapes him in sharp, too-loud groans, feeling Aaron’s palm work roughly over the head of his cock and he knows, just knows, that this isn’t what either of them really need, but it’s the first thing that’s felt close to sanity in a long time.

He wants to tell Aaron something as they stand there in the dark, jerking each other off like they’re chasing some impossible hunger, but he doesn’t know what he wants to say, doesn’t know what would actually mean anything to him now – now that their relationship is even less defined than it was before. He can’t be playful or sincere or bring himself to lie to tell Aaron things that might give him comfort but aren’t true. So Robert says nothing, panting with his mouth against Aaron’s face and giving him all he can.

Robert feels Aaron unsteady on his feet, his fingers curling tight into Robert’s shoulder. His breaths sound loud and shaky as Robert picks up the pace, rushing his touch against the shaft of Aaron’s cock. He wishes things were different – that they could take their time. That they hadn’t reunited in this frenzied race to the finish line with his wife upstairs.

Aaron comes and Robert watches him buckle and recover, finishing off Robert before they both notice the emptiness in each other. It shouldn’t be so silent, so strained. Robert misses the games and the teasing and Aaron’s eagerness. He misses the way his cheeks would flush and his eyes got glittery and Robert would never learn how to resist.

He uses the dressing gown to clean them both up and then wraps it back around himself. Then he cranes his neck to kiss Aaron again – this time slow and savoured. Aaron touches him, just tender enough that Robert can feel that they have something worth saving – something that guilt and death hasn’t rotted away.

“It’s no one’s fault,” Robert says and it’s enough of the truth for now.

“I can’t do it on my own.”

“Then don’t.”


	2. Visit Two - 2016 - Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron wakes up at Home Farm in Robert and Chrissie's bed and full of guilt. It's 2016 and a year of secrets and lies has continued but what has changed? And how long can he stay Robert's bit on the side?

 

  **Visit Two - 2016 – Morning**

**_Aaron_ **

 

 

He hadn’t meant for any of this. Of course, that could be said of his entire relationship with Robert. But today especially was not one he was proud of. He could trace it back and find excuses, find some pathetic justification but perhaps lying here, naked under the sheets, he’s going to have to just accept that there isn’t a good enough reason as to why he’d spent the night with Robert in his martial bed, the bed he shares with Chrissie.

Awake now it’s as if he can feel her watching him from every corner of the room. He’d been so swept up in the moment last night that he hadn’t noticed it as much, hadn’t seen touches of Chrissie’s life surrounding him. But now he does, now that the room smells of men and sex and the sheets are creased and rucked up. He sees her jewellery and make up, he sees a wedding photo of her and Robert tormenting him from the side of the bed.

He’d escape if it wasn’t for Robert, his arm wrapped around his belly, pulling him back against his chest. He tries extracting Robert’s fingers but it’s half-hearted, knowing full well he doesn’t want to move. Aaron thinks about last night and how they got here and his dick stirs. They hadn’t even made it upstairs first of all. Aaron hadn’t even come over to fuck, he’d been there to end things (again) – but it was only a matter of minutes before the shouting died to a low crackle of tension and they were tearing at each other clothes. Aaron’s neck still aches from the position Robert had him in on the sofa, but it’s worth it for the memories.

Thinking back on it now he isn’t even sure what was the tipping point in making him decide to end it with Robert the previous night. Over the last year he’d resigned himself to being Robert’s mistress, came to some miserable acceptance that fleeting encounters were all he was worth and all he deserved. He’d reasoned that at least this way nothing bad could happen – he was only hurting himself and he was okay with that. In part, the acceptance came with the realisation that Robert wasn’t just using him. One night, when he hadn’t been expecting it, when it was the last thing he thought he’d hear, Robert told him he loved him. And that seemed to be enough in his mind to keep on finding each other in the dark, in secret.

The persistent voice in the back of his mind liked to pester him constantly like a dripping tap – _if he loved you, he’d leave her_. He just wasn’t willing to accept that as totally true, because if it was then he’d have to say goodbye to Robert. He just couldn’t. He still can’t. He can’t give him up.

He had slept far too well last night for someone who’d committed the ultimate betrayal. He still can’t believe he’s stooped this low, that he’s this weak for Robert. Maybe he’s hardened to it now – he barely thinks of Chrissie these days, other than some awareness of where she is and how long they’ve got left alone. This is the man he’s become. And this weekend the whole lot of them are away visiting some relative, leaving an apparently apologetic and busy Robert at home. To play.

“Mmm, I know you’re awake,” Robert says suddenly, his voice dragged through sleep and the pillow he’s got his mouth pressed against. He moves so his lips press against the back of Aaron’s head and then his shoulder. Aaron feels himself being rolled ever so slightly forward when Robert’s position shifts and his teeth press in a little graze at the back of Aaron’s neck.

“I’m not,” Aaron says, squashing his face down into the bed and letting his eyes close again.

“Your breathing changed,” Robert says, peppering kisses along Aaron’s shoulder and using the splayed fingers across Aaron’s belly to tease downwards.

“You’re listening to me breathe. And that’s not at all creepy.”

Robert scoffs coldly. “Wow. You’re really not good in the mornings, are you?”

Aaron knows he’s overstepped Robert’s tolerance of his grumpiness, because he stops feeling Robert’s thumb dipping into his pubic hair and there’s a brief rush of coolness behind his back when he realises Robert isn’t spooning him any longer. He rolls onto his back to see Robert’s already out of bed, pulling on boxer shorts with some difficulty thanks to his full hard-on.

“Robert…” Aaron says, pulling at his elbow. His skin is way too soft for the son of a farmer – but Aaron guesses that says it all. When Robert turns back on his heel, his jaw’s hardness is offset by that cloudy blue of his eyes – the colour Aaron loves the most. Soft, vulnerable, his. Not many are lucky enough to see this Robert. “I’m sorry. Come back to bed.”

Robert looks at the floor and then his gaze sweeps up, finally stopping at eye contact. “You don’t have to be difficult. You know how I feel about you.” Aaron blinks – not because he doesn’t know – but because he wants to hear it right now when Chrissie’s presence is bigger than him. It’s as if Robert can’t see that, can’t feel her existence – he’s gotten too good at boxing his two worlds separately. He laughs off Aaron’s silence, shaking his head. “You know I love you.”

“Do you?”

“Where’s that come from?”

“What?”

“The doubts – about me. About us. I thought we’d gone over that last night.”

“We had sex…we spent the night in your _wife’s_ bed.”

“So? You weren’t complaining last night.”

Robert’s right and he can’t claim otherwise. Robert’d had this look in his eye right after he’d blown him on the sofa. His hair had been unruly where Aaron had ploughed his fingers into it and dragged his nails over Robert’s scalp when Robert had dared ease the tip of his thumb into Aaron’s opening. It was too much – mouth and thumb at once and Aaron collapsed in minutes. So much for resolve. But after, Robert’s face open and soft, he took Aaron roughly by the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet.

His voice was velvet, like a slow croon that just curled into his bones. “I’m taking you to bed.” And Aaron hadn’t refused, how could he? How could he say no when Robert kissed his way up and down his naked body, sealing those three words into his skin.

Right now, he can’t look at Robert, can’t deal with the guilt that makes everything ache so much. Why can’t he be selfish and not care? Why can’t he live in the now and keep things just as they are?

It’s only seconds before Robert can’t cope with the silence and he’s crawled back into the bed, underwear lost along the way. He lays out beside Aaron, propped up on one arm. Aaron remembers staring at each and every one of Robert’s freckles that first time after Robert had admitted to loving him, when they’d laid in the heat of each other’s bodies. It had been October when he said it, after a row, when leaves reddened and crisped all around them. Aaron had tried to get away from him, running down country roads even though he swore he’d never fall back into running again after that period of exhausting himself and Robert had been desperate, chasing after him – worried, pained. He’d stopped him the only way he could – by being honest.

“If you keep running you won’t hear it! You won’t hear what I’ve gotta say,” he’d said, almost threatening, by a crack in his voice. Aaron could hear the crunch crunch crunch of his feet crushing leaves on the road. If a car swung around these bends they’d both be gone for.

“I told you to leave me alone!” Aaron called back over his shoulder.

“I’m not going to. And you know why. You know I can’t!” Robert had stopped in the road and despite not wanting to, Aaron had felt himself slow down, holding his breath and listening to what Robert had to say, how he could avoid telling the truth. “It’s because I love you, alright?”  

Aaron wasn’t sure who’d moved first, but they were kissing – Robert’s hands on his waist, then on his face. He’d been warm and unnervingly shy, fragile, letting Aaron take the weight and pace of the kiss into his own hands. They’d driven to the barn and listened to the way the wind groaned through it, Aaron lying with his ear pressed to Robert’s bare chest trying to savour the sound of Robert’s heart and the way his words had sounded down the country lane.

He still sees that nervous vulnerability in Robert now, laying in Chrissie’s bed. Words frighten Robert. He’d rather talk with his hands, his body, his silky tongue over skin.

“It’s just you and me, Aaron. Right here, right now. It’s just you and me.”

Robert kisses the straight, conflicted line of Aaron’s mouth until Aaron responds back with the same tenderness, the same heat that gets him right in the gut. Robert makes him feel alive in a way he’s not sure he’s ever felt before. Holding back on the smile he knows Robert wants, Aaron traces his tongue along Robert’s bottom lip and feeling the warm huff of air from Robert’s nose, pressed into his cheek.

With the right amount of flirtatiousness to send Aaron’s head dizzy, Robert runs his hand along the back of Aaron’s thigh making him ticklish and horny as hell. He squeezes the flesh and spreads his legs to mount on top of Aaron.

Aaron breaks, breathless from kissing, mouth in that stunned, lazy looseness from Robert’s forceful mouth.

“I thought it was my turn,” he says, grabbing at Robert’s arse.

“Yeah, I said later,” Robert replies, kissing Aaron’s neck and making a clumsy attempt to reach for the condoms.

Everything happens so fast, in slick, hot and heavy actions. At times he feels like he can’t breathe. He’s sore and satisfied all at once. Robert has this way of clawing right into his head and fulfilling every need that he didn’t even know he wanted. It kills him to think he might have missed out on this. Robert’s thrusts are getting so erratic and so back-breakingly deep that he feels an apocalypse of pleasure eating him from the inside out. Robert pushes his thumb into Aaron’s mouth and drives his head back to face him so they’re making unbreakable eye contact just as Robert starts to lose it.

He sees every colour in the spectrum in Robert’s eyes, every moment of heaven and hell he’s capable of as he comes. Aaron swears to some nameless being and feels Robert use him for one final and climaxing thrust before Aaron’s head falls to the side, exhausted and ravaged.

“ _I-love-you-I-love-you._ ”

Then he watches as the world ends in Robert’s eyes. Chrissie stands in the doorway of the bedroom, not just a presence or a photo, but the real woman.


	3. Visit Three – 2023 – Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight years on from the last chapter, so much has changed for Aaron and Robert. Early afternoon, on a crucial day in their lives, they both worry about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to message me, written a comment or given kudos. I seriously appreciate it as it's massive encouragement. Also thank you to my lovely friend phantompillow on tumblr for inspiring this fic!

** Visit Three – 2023 – Afternoon **

**_Aaron_ **

 

"Alright mate. Where did you rush off to last night?" Adam asks, briefly nodding in greeting as he closes the door behind them. They’re upstairs in the pub, in Aaron’s old bedroom which is now stripped of any identity it once had and operating as a spare for any strays Diane might let stay. Aaron breaks his concentration and turns away from the mirror and the uneven looping of his tie which he seems to be struggling with more than usual and double checks that the door is shut. Chas is outside and she'll use any opportunity provided to listen in. She should know by now that the top stairs by the landing creak and so any covert spying is easily detectable.

Aaron shrugs in response to Adam's question and faces his appearance again, fidgeting with his collar. He starts overanalysing the colour of the tie even though when he chose it he didn’t give it much thought. Now he hates it and he hates himself for even caring about the stupid colour of a stupid tie.

Adam perches on the bed and clicks his tongue around his mouth to fill the empty silence. "So...how you feeling?"

"Like I could do without the twenty questions. Mum's been on my case all morning so I don’t need you doing it n’all."

"Aw come on man! Relax, will you? She's just excited for ya."

Aaron scoffs and feels the neck of the shirt like two hands around his throat. He's all red and blotchy there too where it rubbed and made him feel warm and uncomfortable. "I know her and it's not excitement. She's pacing up and down out there waiting for something to go wrong."

"What d'you mean?"

“She hates Robert. She’s always hated him. She’s probably out there now rubbing her hands together waiting for him to screw things up.”

“Is that what this is about? The bad mood?” Adam says, not knowing when to leave things – even after all his experience with Aaron. “You’re worried he’s not going to show up?”

Aaron covers his whole face with his hands and they feel rough and overworked. He knew he should have owned up at the Stag Do last night, but he stuck a face on – a sort of tired grin that they all knew was about his limit on the smiling front – and pretended everything was fine. He mixed beer with a topsy-turvy stomach and headed home early with barely a quick goodbye to Adam and the rest. It hadn’t been much more than a usual night out but what with the jokes about married life and banter about Robert, Aaron had lost his nerve and headed back to his temporary base at the pub. He’d seen his groom’s suit hanging up on the doors of the pine wardrobe when he’d got in and then promptly emptied the contents of his stomach (one Balti, three pints) into Diane’s pristine toilet bowl. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry Robert – he wanted that more than anything – it had just started to become all too real and the doubts had intensified to this huge wall of fear.

Aaron doesn’t answer Adam because he can’t think of a suitable response that doesn’t make him seem like some pathetic fool, so he fidgets with cufflinks until Adam is forced to come and help him.

“It’s normal to get cold feet you know,” Adam says, patting him on the shoulder. “I mean, look at me and Vic. You practically had to drag me to the church.”

Aaron smiles weakly, like he has to tug at the corners of his mouth himself. He thuds himself down onto the bed, resting his chin in his hand. “Still can’t believe you’re gonna be my brother in law.”

“Ehh! If that’s not a reason to smile I don’t know what is.” Adam pulls him into a headlock like they’re still teenagers until Aaron gives him a hard enough shove. The palm of his hand hits something solid in Adam’s suit pocket and he realises, sobering up, that he’s carrying the rings.

He gets up and starts pacing the room again, heads to the window and looks out across the village. Each spot is a landmark of every disaster they’ve been through and scraped through the other side. Robert keeps saying they’ll move away, find somewhere that is just theirs, not marred with history and anguish and patrolled by family members. It hasn’t happened yet and it’s another one of those doubts springing up like a weed in his head – maybe this is just another sign that Robert isn’t the commitment type.

“So spit it out,” Adam says. “What’s really bothering ya?”

Aaron leans on the window, not quite able to bring himself to look at Adam. “What if I’m not enough for him?”

“What…you mean…like if he wants a woman again?”

Aaron shakes his head. It’s never been Robert’s sexuality that caused him an issue, more that damaging little phrase from his mother that harps on and on: _one a cheat, always a cheat_. He’d grown restless and strayed in the face of marriage before, who was to say he wouldn’t again? It didn’t matter whether Aaron trusted him or not, Robert had history – a well documented, well told history – of cheating on everyone he’d ever claimed to love. Did Aaron really deem himself special enough to be the exception? Could he prepare for that kind of heartbreak? Look at how they’d begun – the illicit thrill of an affair. Who’s to say there wouldn’t be someone else to give him that excitement when he couldn’t.

“Well what then? And anyway, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Oh man! You really are losing it today!” Adam says, approaching him. “He gave it all up for you. And I mean everything – the house, the wife, the car.”

“You make it sound like he had a choice.” Aaron scoffs. He remembers it all too well. Chrissie’s screams cutting right through him and watching Robert beg and plead with her like a dog as Aaron pulled on clothes and shielded himself from Chrissie’s fists. Robert hadn’t looked at him, didn’t speak to him for days on end whilst Lawrence promised to make his life a living hell if he ever dared set foot near Home Farm ever again.

“I know the guy can be a bit of a dick,” Adam says, “but she took him back. She forgave him and he ended it. He chose to leave her. For you. You know he did.”

The moment is interrupted then as Adam’s phone bleeps and when he reads it his face changes, but he’s too slow to mask his first reaction.

“What? What is it?” Aaron asks.

“No. Nothing.”

But it’s too late, Aaron snatches the phone off him. It’s from Vic.

_Slight problem. You seen Rob? He’s gone AWOL. On today of all days!_

**_Robert_ **

Before anyone arrives at Dale View, while Andy’s still asleep, Robert slips out of the cottage and heads to the cemetery. He wishes he’d been able to spend the night in his own bed, with Aaron, at Keeper’s Cottage - which they’d just about managed to start making their own since having bought it off Betty three years ago, but he’d agreed to go out for a few drinks with his brother the night before the wedding and crash at his.

“You didn’t have a proper Stag Do the first time, so it’s only right I at least buy us a few rounds,” Andy had said as they headed to the Woolpack. Robert tried not to let his thoughts wander back to his wedding with Chrissie and all that followed. He barely managed a day without thinking about Katie and he definitely didn’t need reminding about the divorce. It’s not like he hadn’t deserved it, but she stripped him of everything, leaving him to crawl up from the gutter – ashamed, jobless, homeless.

To make matters worse Aaron didn’t want to know at first. He’d told him plainly that he didn’t want to be a default choice, a second best. Except he wasn’t – Robert had left _her_ in the end - and Robert tried explaining himself, until he gathered up the last shreds of his pride and abandoned all hope of being with Aaron. He’d moved in with Andy and ghosted around the house for weeks on end eating cereal out the box and avoiding looking for work, too embarrassed to apply for jobs that paid half what he was accustomed to.

In some ways, he was grateful that Chrissie had been too mortified to go shouting around the village what had happened – no woman wants to admit they took their husband back after catching him screwing a man in the marital bed, only for him to leave. But in other ways it might have been easier if she had outed him, because now he was left pressed up against the closet doors, breathing in the outside air.

Andy had been patient with him living at Dale View back then, sighing in his general presence and doing his washing until he could take no more and switched off the TV, sitting beside him on the sofa.

“Are you going to tell me what happened with you and Chrissie, or what?”

Robert rubbed at his forehead, staring ahead at the blank TV screen. “I just don’t want to go into it, alright?”

“No. Not alright. You’re working your way through the contents of my fridge and watching cartoons all day. I think I deserve to know what’s going on!” Andy said. Robert could feel just by the way he was sitting that he was biting back on things he really wanted to say. “Is it over for good? This isn’t just some domestic tiff?”

“Over for good.” Robert got up and headed to the kitchen area, offering Andy a coffee.

“Did you cheat on her?”

“Oh here we are! Finally! How long you been sitting on that one, Andy?”

“Well d’you blame me for asking? It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

Robert scoffed, bashing cupboard doors closed as he took a mug out and put it down by the sink. “That’s all I’m good for, isn’t it? Messing things up.”

“You tell me, Rob.”

Robert braced against the sink, knuckles white. He felt as if a pendulum were swinging against his skull, flicking back and forth between truth and lies. What was he really afraid of? He’d already lost everything.

“Fine. Okay. I had an affair. She caught me. End of story.”

Andy didn’t even pretend to be surprised, just a hint of weariness in his expression. It was what he had expected all along. “And you couldn’t sort things out?”

His spine solidified, shoulders ridged like someone had poured cement into him. “Chrissie wanted to. She even said she forgave me.”

As the kettle boiled in the silence between the brothers, Andy’s face ticked over Robert’s motives for leaving her, for being the one to walk out on everything he had wanted. The perfect life.

“So what about the other woman?”

“What other woman?”

“The one she caught you with,” Andy said, moving towards the kitchen and getting himself a mug of his own.   

The pendulum stopped and Robert stood side by side with Andy at the sink, stooped, smaller, folded in on himself. The air dried up around him like this moment was happening in a vacuum – one Andy wasn’t even noticing.

“It was Aaron,” he said, breath held and his heart vibrating his entire ribcage until he thought he might be sick.

Andy pulled back, lines on his forehead like valleys. He laughed. “What?” His whole face shook in a smile as he took the kettle out of Robert’s hands.

“It wasn’t a _woman_. It was Aaron.”

“Aaron? What? Hold on…Aaron Livesy?”

“How many other Aarons do you know?” Robert said. His tongue had shrivelled in his mouth like a screwed ball of paper and he found his voice trembling all over. It was a stupid comment considering how many Aarons there might be on the planet, but for him there had only ever been one. His.

“You’re telling me you’ve been shagging Aaron Livesy?” Andy’s expression flickered between confusion and amusement, eyes switching back and forth.

“What do you want - diagrams?”

“Since when do you fancy blokes?”

“I don’t know! I’m not very good on dates.”

“You’re taking the piss!” Andy said, slapping his hand against Robert’s back with mirth until the laughter died and Robert could feel his own face had hardened, hot air blowing shakily out of his nose. “You’re serious.”

The muscle in Robert’s cheek twitched and he found himself throwing his used spoon into the sink and walking away, slumping into one of the kitchen chairs, buried down by his confession. “Go on…I’m waiting.”

“What for?”

Andy joined him at the table, watching him intently as he dragged his hands through his hair. “Whatever it is you’re going to say.”

“It’s a lot to take in.” Andy breathed out, picking at the table top. “I didn’t even know you two were friends let alone…”

“Yeah well…I didn’t want anyone to find out, did I?”

“And Aaron’s the first bloke that you’ve…?”

Robert looked up and felt a long, slow blink travel through him. “I think you know me well enough to work out that I’ve done my fair share of one night stands.”

“Right…! I didn’t know you’d…branched out.”

“Well, it was hardly going to be my opening line. ‘ _Hey bro, guess what’_ …” Robert’s sarcasm dimmed and he looked away again, voice softer this time. “Chrissie didn’t know and neither did anyone else.”

“You could’ve told me.”

“It wasn’t important.”

Andy sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. They’d argued over Andy’s fidgeting so many times that Robert knew this was just his way of getting him to talk – to snap – but hadn’t he said enough?

“Vic’s gonna love this. A gay best friend and a gay brother.”

“I’m not gay. And you can’t tell her.”

“She’s gonna find out eventually.”

“Only if you go shooting your mouth off,” Robert said, glaring at Andy and his hands clawed and vicious around his mug.

“It’s gonna come out eventually!”

“I don’t see why. It’s over. Aaron won’t even speak to me.”

Andy straightened up in his seat, shaking his head, arms across his body. “What’s happened to you, Rob? You’ve been sitting round the house feeling sorry for yourself in a right sulk. That’s not the Rob I know. You left Chrissie for him, right? For Aaron? Then why aren’t you over there fighting for him back? The Robert I know wouldn’t just be sat here. When have you ever not got what you wanted?”

Robert thinks about this conversation as he stands at his father’s grave on the morning before his wedding. Jack’s grave sits slightly behind Katie’s, whose headstone is always decorated in flowers that Andy leaves. The full circumstance of her death is still the one secret he and Aaron keep between them, an invisible scar of what Robert’s really capable of and what Aaron is able to forgive. But as he stares at his father’s grave, reading the engravings, he speaks to Jack in his mind asking him the questions that have been keeping him awake all night. _Can I be good enough for him? Will I break him? Hurt him? When will he realise what a screw up I am?_

He keeps walking after that. Walking and walking until his lungs hurt and the sharpness of the wind makes his face sting. He knows where he’s going and he knows why, he needs a reminder. He stands outside the driveway of Home Farm letting his mobile ring and ring.

*

By the time Robert is back at Dale View, he’s greeted by Victoria at the front door, dressed up and phone in hand. Her eyes are wide and childlike only for a moment and then her mouth draws in small.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” she says, grabbing at the front of his jacket and pulling him into the house. “I’ve been calling you. Why haven’t you picked up?”

Before he can answer he sees Diane in the background standing beside Andy. Everyone’s ready except him and he realises he’s lost all concept of time. By the looks on their faces, guarded and serious, he knows they’re treating him with kid gloves – he’s done wrong in their eyes already. It’s only Vic who’s ready to take him on.

“Don’t you do this to him! Don’t you dare!” Vic says, placing her hands on her hips and he gets a lightning bolt flash of their mother in her posture.

“Do what? I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” Robert scoffs and then feels the bravado immediately falls away when he looks at Andy.

“Best get your suit on then, love,” Diane says, talking to him as if he’s still that scared little boy. Maybe he is. She sounds nervous, a strange lilt to her voice like she’s holding her breath and trying to keep it together for all of him.

“In a minute.”

“Rob…” Andy says, slicing straight through him. Why is it Andy knows? Andy always knows.

“Alright! I said in a minute,” Robert says, his hands raising as if to escape out of this pressure cooker they’ve built around him. All their eyes are on him, waiting, counting down the minutes until he fucks up. Is that what Aaron’s doing too? Adding up how long they’ve got until it all falls apart, until Robert makes it fall apart. Robert hears his dad’s voice in his head, berating him for never being satisfied, always wanting more and more, always trying to get his own way. Is that what everyone else thinks too? Is that what they’ve all been thinking ever since he got with Aaron – that all it would take is a fog of boredom and an attractive distraction and he’d be off? _I’m not like that, Dad. I don’t need to be that person anymore_.

There’s a knock at the door and even though Vic is closer and adopting a hostess pose – ready to greet and put on a brave face – Robert pushes past her, needing that exit, needing the relief of the cold village air just to keep him sane.

He pulls back the door, still in jeans and a jumper, hair unkempt and sees Aaron on the doorstep – dressed in his groom’s suit, eyes scuffed with tears.

 

**_Aaron_ **

On the walk from the pub to Dale View, with Adam pleading with him to stay put and he’d sort it, Aaron promised himself he wouldn’t cry. He’d done enough crying, enough hurting, over Robert Sugden and today was supposed to be the last of all that. In his head he started treading over all their memories, all the things he loved about Robert and tried to sully them, make them into something negative. He knew full well what he was doing – he was protecting himself, shielding himself against the worst so if that Robert left him on their supposed wedding day then he’d have reasons for why it was a good thing. If he could convince himself he was better off without him then losing him wouldn’t kill him – he’d survive it.

He started with the obvious. The big things. The things they’d sworn never to raise in the heat of the moment and would bury with them. Then it was the little things – things he’d always kept as ammo for when they needed to row and fight. The time he forgot Aaron’s birthday; that first Christmas as a proper couple when he let some bird kiss him under the mistletoe with Aaron stood right there because he was too embarrassed to use the word boyfriend; the times he got shitty and jealous of his friendship with Adam; the time he said anniversaries were meaningless all because he forgot; the time he _told_ Aaron they were moving in together without asking him properly; the time he got a letter from Chrissie and lied about it; and now – going missing on the day they were meant to be getting married.

But the worse thing was, after each bad time he could think of, Aaron could think of highs that didn’t just outweigh the bad but made him smile when he didn’t even want to. They came to him in reverse order, snatches of conversations – feelings of warmth spreading through his bones.

*

_A year ago, give or take a few months. Winter brittle in their cottage, a fire just about taking the chill off in the living room. Aaron in three pairs of socks curled up on the sofa reading a magazine. Robert drinking wine and on the phone to his sister. A background of noise that Aaron hovered in and out of._

_“I suppose you’ve heard the news already,” Robert had said when the call ended and made himself comfy and stretched out next to Aaron, arm behind his shoulders._

_“Hmm?”_

_“Vic and Adam…renewing their vows.”_

_“Oh yeah. That.”_

_“Yeah, that’s what I thought. They’ve only been married five minutes and she wants another big party.”_

_“Great.”_

_Robert put down his glass on the coffee table, alerted to Aaron’s total lack of attention and interest. He leant over, pressing his nose into the short, shaven hair at Aaron’s neck and kissed him there, right where he knew how to wake him up. “Do you ever think about doing that?” he said, kissing below Aaron’s ear lobe._

_“Having a party?” Aaron said, losing grip on his ability to concentrate on the magazine._

_“Getting married.”_

_Aaron’s nose flared with a short laugh. “Not likely.”_

_Robert withdrew, his hand slipping down Aaron’s shoulder. “Why not?”_

_“Dunno. I’m not really into all that stuff, am I? I mean, you’ve done it and it was hardly worth your time.”_

_Then Robert had stopped looking at his face, lowered his head and his brow. His face soft and serious. “And what if I asked you?”_

_“Asked…to marry me?”_

_“Yeah. What about then?”_

_“Is this you…asking me now?”_

_Aaron had felt this unnerving swell of anticipation, a tightness in his chest like staying underwater for too long and then Robert closed the gap between them, kissing him with the question._

_“Will you?”_

_*_

_Three years ago. Two sets of brand new keys. Moving day. After they’d kissed and made up about him going behind Aaron’s back over the sale. Money and power and lies. The arguments were always the same. Rehashed, reused. That first night in the place that was officially theirs. Not relying on family members and quiet sex in other people’s houses or obscene hotel bills because Robert wanted privacy and couldn’t let go of his old spending habits. Just unpacked boxes and takeaway pizza and a house that still smelt faintly of an old woman – but not for long._

_Aaron felt his back throb from the solid, old bed – springs scissoring up through the tired mattress. Why hadn’t Robert got them a proper bed?_

_“I love you,” Robert had said, mouth still wet from kisses that lasted an eternity. Maybe he didn’t care so much about the bed._

_*_

_Six years ago. The Woolpack. Last orders._

_“I told you, I don’t want to speak to you.”_

_“Just hear me out,” Robert pleaded. Aaron wasn’t sure at what point he noticed that Robert’s finger was free of his wedding ring, only that when he first reached out to touch Aaron – Aaron shrugged him off._

_“No. There’s nothing you can say to me.”_

_People were looking around now. Moira and Cain in the corner, Cain perched half-ready to break up the situation if need be. Alicia behind the bar trying not to listen but doing it anyway. Leyla, Vanessa, Val and Kerry in the corner getting ready to go home but lingering to see why Aaron was raising his voice._

_“Please, Aaron.”_

_Aaron stood, pint drained. By his side his fists clenched and released, blood pumping viciously round his system. He’d been humiliated, used, dropped, shat on by this man and here he was wanting to ‘talk’. Aaron got right up in his face, close enough that his lungs filled with his scent, and then shoved him backwards, both hands on his chest._

_“I suggest you leave before I batter you.”_

_“Oh aye, it’s all kicking off!” Kerry said without lowering her voice._

_“Five minutes. That’s all I want.”_

_Aaron caught Cain’s eye and he stood, until Aaron encouraged him to sit back down. “I suggest you go home, pal,” he said, aimed at Robert regardless._

_“And this is any of your business, how exactly?” Robert said, adopting his familiar stance of hands in pockets and a tone that made him feel superior._

_“It is when you’re lording it over my family,” Cain replied._

_Aaron shook his head briefly and then turned back to Robert. “Thirty seconds to say your bit and then I want you gone.”_

_Robert gave an exasperated laugh. “Can we at least go out the back?”_

_“Twenty seconds now.”_

_“Fine!” he snapped. “Okay, okay. Chrissie didn’t kick me out, alright? I left her. I’ve been staying with Andy.”_

_Aaron scoffed, running his hand along the side of his face. Standing by, Alicia held her breath, unable to continue cleaning the glass in her hand, her eyes were off to the side looking like she – along with the rest of the pub – were trying to piece together this palpable tension. Robert was wasting precious seconds in silence, hunching his shoulders as if he wanted to gesticulate but couldn’t._

_“The reason I came…the reason I wanted to see you…”_

_Aaron couldn’t deal with Robert’s inability to face up to the truth. A sigh left him and he was turning on his heel, before he could let Robert see his pain again, until he felt Robert’s hands on his shoulders spinning him around. His brain lagged a second behind, slowly catching up on the fact that Robert’s mouth was on his. Hard, fast, breathless, desperate. In front of the whole pub._

_When Robert pulled away, his hand slipping loosely from Aaron’s face, he didn’t make eye contact with the people staring at their direction and Aaron couldn’t tear his gaze away either. He didn’t know how to speak, like he’d lost all sense of it._

_“I want **you**. No one else.”_

_The whole world thudded in his ears, a pulse rate that made Robert’s words feel like hazy dreamed up sounds. But he wasn’t about to drag his whole private life into the village so after a brief and bashful grin at Robert – he conceded and took him to the backroom of the pub, hearing one last shout from Kerry as they went: “Who needs telly when you’ve got all this going on on ya doorstep?”_

_*_

And these are all reasons why when he gets to Dale View to find out where the hell Robert is, that his eyes are puffy and red from crying. He doesn’t even need to see his reflection to know that. He ran over speeches and words in his head – things he was going to say to Vic about how much faith he’d had in Robert and how much they’d been through to get here – and when he knocks on the front door, he’s riled, totally pumped up and fuelled by this anger and upset.

Robert answers the door looking the opposite of ready, looking like he’s about to back down and run scared.

“Aaron!” he says unable to hide the surprise and panic in his voice. Even before they lived together, before they were even a proper couple, Aaron had learnt every nuance of Robert’s behaviour – it was all part of the infatuation.

“You’re not dressed.”

“You look great,” he says, loading his voice with hollow flirtation in an attempt to distract Aaron from what’s really going on with his eyes.

“Why aren’t you ready?”

“I just went for a walk. Why is everyone on my case?”

“Because we’re supposed to be getting married. We’re supposed to be at the registry office in an hour.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“Where did you go? On this _walk_.”

Robert crosses his arms over his chest. “I went to see my dad. That okay with you?”

Victoria appears in the hallway behind him, the same sting of upset in her eyes that Aaron has. “I checked the cemetery. You weren’t there,” she says.

Robert takes out his car keys from his pocket, jaw set, and pushes past Aaron, leading the way to his car. “Fine. I’ll show you,” he says, opening the passenger seat for Aaron. “Get in.”

“Robert!” Victoria calls from the doorstep. “We’ve got to be there soon!”

Aaron can’t see properly from the scowl he’s giving Robert but he hears him tell his sister to bring his suit and that he’ll meet her there. Aaron greets Robert with a steely silence when he finally gets in the car and drives.

*

“Why’ve you brought me here?”

Aaron feels a crushing sickness pressing against his chest cavity as he stares out the windscreen and up the gravelled pathway leading to Home Farm. It isn’t just the memories of coming here that start bludgeoning his senses, it’s the realisation of what it means. The fear throttles him again and he’s too afraid to look at Robert and process what he’s thinking and feeling. This is the place he came on the morning of their wedding? To weigh up his regrets? Because of his doubts? Because he misses what he had? For a final goodbye to the life he’d always wanted?

“When I first met you I had everything I ever wanted.”

“I don’t want to listen to this,” Aaron says, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Robert stops him, locking his hand over the fastening.

“I had it all - the family, the wife. the car. The house on the hill. Money. People envied me. I’d made something of myself. My dad would have been proud of me.” Robert’s voice trails off into the past and Aaron sits on the anger that layers up inside of him, feeling Robert’s gaze drift over. “I came here this morning to remind myself…about how stupid and shallow and meaningless it all was. How long I lived under this image of the guy with everything, thinking it was what I wanted.”

“And now you’re stuck in some run down cottage, in a job that doesn’t pay enough and a fucked-up mechanic for a boyfriend…”

Robert’s hand rests lightly on his cheek, thumb skimming over the scruff of Aaron’s light stubble. Aaron doesn’t turn away from the window, not wanting to show Robert how vulnerable he is. “Now I’ve got a job I earned and a _fiancé_ that I don’t deserve,” he pauses, “but I won’t argue over the cottage. It’s falling apart.” He leans over into Aaron’s side of the car and opens the glove box, pulling out listings of apartments from the estate agent. “That’s why I thought we could look through these when we’re back from the honeymoon. If you can still stand the sight of me.”

Aaron smears his wet eyes on the cuff of his suit and immediately regrets it when he sees the patch it left. He looks at Robert, as fragile and reassembled as he is.

“I’m not enough for you. For now, maybe…but how could you give up everything for me?” There’s always been that flicker of panic at the back of his mind that Robert would one day return here and want it back – want back his old life – if not with Chrissie (she was long gone) then someone else. Something easy and simple and conventional. Aaron would think about it as justice, as punishment – for everything.

“Because I love you, Aaron. You give me everything I want. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that what we have is perfect, because there’s no such thing. I’m a screw up and I’ll keep screwing up but if you’re there then I’ve got a reason to be better, haven’t I?”

In the stifling car, cooking with years of emotions, Aaron drags his nails down his face groaning at another moment in his life where things just can’t be straight forward. Do blokes with birds have it this messed up? But all it takes is a half look at Robert, hair all messy and ravaged and long legs stuffed into the car, and solid thighs and a small folded-up belly from too much good wine and a lined and freckled face too handsome to explain its irresistible ways – and he knows, Aaron knows why it’s always been Robert and why he wouldn’t wish for it any other way, with anyone else. He leans across the seats and lands his mouth against Robert’s full lips, kissing the softness from them – the softness only he gets to taste – feeling the comforting tendrils of a smile pulling at Robert’s mouth when his hand dives into that blond hair.

“Right then. Put your foot down. You gonna marry me, or what?”


End file.
